Beer & Cheese Pairings at FINO
It’s Austin Beer Week this week. What does that mean? It means there are beer-related events all over the place. On Tuesday, I went to the beer and cheese pairing event at FINO, featuring Tim from the Real Ale Brewing Company in Blanco and John from Antonelli’s Cheese Shop here in Austin.
Each of us tried six beers and six cheeses. John had sent Tim a selection of roughly 30 cheese from which Tim had made the pairings, which meant John was trying the match ups for the first time, too.
My favorite pairing was the last, which featured Rogue Creamery’s Caveman, the blue cheese shown in the upper left of the above photo, with Real Ale’s Sisyphus Vintage from 2004. I’d had the cheese before, but with the barley wine, it was a really incredible treat. I’m not sure everyone at the table loved it as much as I did, but I really enjoy big flavors.
My “aha” moment of the evening came from John, who pointed out that beer and cheese have an interesting historical intersection in that both are essentially preserved foods. Beer was effectively clean water, while cheese was preserved milk. Both were ways of making sustenance portable and preservable, allowing people to become more mobile as civilization developed. It’s one of those things that makes perfect sense, but that I hadn’t thought much about before.
Austin Beer Week continues with events through this Saturday. If you’re interested in craft brewing or fancy beer, definitely pop into something. While this event was a tickets-in-advance type show, there are a lot more casual happenings, too.
Overall, a fine time was had. I enjoy events like tastings not because I have an incredibly sophisticated palate (I don’t, although I am working on it), but because I enjoy the opportunity to really linger over food. And, finally, check out the gorgeous color on that glass of Rio Blanco Pale Ale above.
